Wednesday, Sep 27, 2023 - Payson AZ to Bisbee AZ

 

Looks like about 5 or 6 of us in this campground this morning. We left the window and vents open thinking it would not get too cold, but at 3am it was 60 so I closed things up and turned the heater on. Today is our last day on the road and we have a few options on how to get home. We chose the slightly longer way which keeps out of the Phoenix crazy traffic. 

But first coffee and WiFi in Payson. There was also an awesome looking donut place a couple of blocks from McDonald's, so we walked down there and picked up a couple of really fresh donuts for breakfast. Four older guys were out front so we chatted them up. They said Payson has no industry and it’s big because it’s 10 degrees cooler than Phoenix and there are a lot of retired folks here. It’s also only an hour from Phoenix so second homes maybe. Nice guys.

Deb drove the first leg and the first part of the Tonto National Forest was kind of pretty but as we approached Theodore Roosevelt Lake it was socked in with smoke from somewhere. But by the time we got to the lower end of the lake (it’s a 22 mile long lake), the smoke was gone. The water level is really high, which is left over from a 5” storm in one day so a lot of the campground sites had beachfront right at the sites.

We saw a sign for Tonto National Monument so we drove the mile or so and found a visitor center fully staffed with almost nobody there. As usual it was a lot more interesting than we had thought. The Salado tribe lived here around 1300-1450 and they built cliff dwellings about a half mile straight up above the visitor center. We walked up and there was a very informative young ranger up there dying to answer all our questions. She was great, and we got her career history. She worked for the National Park Service for 7 years and had served in the Smoky Mountains, Mammoth Cave, Kansas grasslands park, and she was now here. We could tell she was naturally curious so perfect for bouncing around and having to re-learn each new place. She said they typically have a two week training period when they start in a new park.

We stopped at Subway in Globe for lunch and then on to Safford through the San Carlos Reservation where a lot of the tribes were moved in the late 1800’s. Geronimo was moved here but kept breaking out until they finally shipped him to Florida in 1886.

Coffee in Safford and then south to I-10 to Willcox, then the back way home down Rt 191.

We unloaded the van in the driveway and then parked it in our friend Cooper’s driveway (thanks again Cooper). The house was still there except for some new ants in the kitchen. Good to be home.